[98] Mr. N. W. Wraxall's Private Journal.
[99] Whenever the word dollar is used, its value must be taken at three marcs courant, or about 3s. 6d. of our money.
[100] The rank-order (rang-ordnung) is divided into nine classes in Denmark. To the first class belong the privy councillors of conferences, generals and lieutenant-generals, admirals and vice-admirals, and the Counts von Danneskjold Samsöe (by reason of their birth); to the second class, the councillors of conference, major-generals and rear-admirals; and to the third, actual councillors of state, colonels and commanders. Only these classes had the right to attend court up to the reign of Frederick VI.
[101] This private journal was kept in 1774. In 1796, when preparing his "Courts of Vienna, Berlin," &c., for press, my grandfather endorsed it: "The account of the Danish revolution and of Struensee is of the highest authenticity, and, at the same time, of the most delicate and secret nature." A great portion of this narrative has been worked into my text; but I have not thought it necessary, in every instance, to quote my authority.
[102] There was no truth in this report, for Struensee was devotedly attached to a Mrs. B——, whose acquaintance he had formed in England, and wore her miniature round his neck even at his execution.
[103] Reverdil, pp. 147, 148.
[104] In "Northern Courts" it is stated that the two men were in love with the wife of General von Gähler, and that the Russian, knowing that an ambassador could not meet a doctor with the sword, took the cowardly revenge of inflicting a severe castigation on Struensee with a cane—a mode of discipline to which he had himself been often subjected at Petersburg. It is also stated by the same author, that Frau von Gähler's motive for dismissing the Russian was, because he refused to join the queen's party. If this is authentic, we may conclude that the crafty envoy, even at that time, saw in the queen an opponent of the Philo-Russian policy of the Copenhagen cabinet.
[105] "Authentische Aufklärungen."
[106] "Authentische Aufklärungen."
[107] Struensee had taken riding lessons in England of Astley.